UK

SCOTLAND Yard’s Art and Antiques Unit are staging an exhibition at the V&A to raise awareness among museums, galleries and art dealers of the problem of fakes in London.

CLARION Arts have named their Spring Olympia fair FORM.

CONTEMPORARY art has helped the Fine Art Society triple its turnover in the past four years, according to results just released.

“A MOMENT of European importance” is how architects acknowledge Tyringham Hall in Buckinghamshire. It is one of the greatest country houses designed by Sir John Soane (1753-1837), the leading architect of his generation.

£57m Indian summer for auction rooms

Renowned Bristol-born graffiti artist Robert Banks, better known as Banksy (b.1975), has made himself into a globally-recognised phenomenon by planting his subversive guerrilla artwork in the world’s best galleries, museums, and amusement parks.

“THE Shelley Group has only one public fair each year and this is its 20th staging since the group was organised back in 1986. This must be a pretty good record for a collectors’ group,” says the group’s Martin Kent.

When Sotheby’s sold the first portion of the Wardington library of atlases and geographies last year, London dealer Bernard Shapero set a cartographic auction record by paying £1.3m for the ‘Doria’ atlas, a superb collection of so-called Lafreri School maps of the latter part of the 16th century.

DMG make it a trade event as they revamp portfolio across the board

Spink have added musical instruments to their portfolio by taking an equity stake in Brompton’s Auctioneers. They will operate from Spink’s newly expanded premises at 29 Southampton Row in London WC1, starting with a sale on November 6.

This early 18th century Channel Islands silver punch bowl, measuring 11in (28cm) in diameter and weighing 52oz, was among the highlights of a 100-lot single owner collection of silver, stored in a Channel Islands bank for over 30 years, offered by Martel Maides of Guernsey on September 28.

LAST month at Hemswell Antiques Centres in Gainsborough, north of Lincoln, whose website proclaims it to be the largest antiques centre in Europe with 300 dealers in three buildings and 1000 antiques available online, ten of the centres’ customers were offered the opportunity to learn about antique furniture from an experienced dealer.

SOON after setting up on Friday morning a few weeks ago at Shepton Mallet a flash flood swept through the Edmund Rack building leaving stallholders hastily packing up again and huddling by the entrance.

PROGRAMME Monthly and Football Collectable is a monthly magazine for football programme and memorabilia collectors. Published since 1981, it offers collecting advice including football programme prices and features famous programme covers.

RECOMMENDED by Fiona Knapp, who has recently designed a range of jewellery for the Biba label, as one of the best places to buy gemstones in London, the quarterly Rock and Gem Show is held at Kempton Park Racecourse with the next scheduled for October 21 and 22.

JAY Fairs’ Joy O’Meara is holding her Winter Antiques and Collectors’ Fleamarket at Didcot Civic Hall, Didcot, Oxfordshire on Sunday October 8.

A LONGSTANDING tradition going back over 30 years has resulted in an annual antiques fair in Cranleigh, Surrey supporting Leonard Cheshire, the UK’s largest charity for the disabled, which takes place this year on Saturday October 14 at Cranleigh Village Hall.

EVER since the recognition in 1855 of the potential of a 93-acre site close to the Devon town of Newton Abbot, there’s been a fine tradition of competitive horseracing.

FINCHCOCKS, a Georgian mansion near Goudhurst in Kent, now the Finchcocks Music Museum, is home to owner and pianist Richard Burnett’s collection of more than 100 historic keyboard instruments, many in full playing condition.

“I leave to my dear friend Taffy my Compass so that he may occasionally know where he is going/ My Watch which almost cost me my life so that he may occasionally arrive at an appointed time / With Regards from his erstwhile passenger Lawrence.”